KING BLACK #5 - Everything Ends!

 This story was written by Donny Cates, with visuals from Ryan Stegman. 

 

Aside from one issue of Venom, that I will be sitting down to read in a couple of days, the King in Black event is mercifully over. After four months of what I thought was pretty mixed storytelling, with every issue of the event slowly declining in quality, I think that I can finally say definitively that this was not my favourite event ever, although it was certainly one of the better ones that Marvel have produced in the post-Secret Wars era, which to be honest is not exactly a difficult feat when you consider the utter dross that the House of Ideas have pelted us with in the last six years.

As for this individual instalment of the event, I felt that overall it was actually quite a good story, certainly the best since issue #2 when everything started going downhill, although it was certainly not a perfect finale by any means. In my opinion, the ending was a rather abrupt affair, with everything just going straight back to normal with no fallout within the title in and of itself. In this case, I would have to say that the lack of fallout is kind of understandable, as Cates is likely saving the major stuff for his and Ryan Stegman’s final outing with the Venom character, in the upcoming issue #200, which is actually a rather smart move on their part if that is the case. The only real thing of note that needs to be known about this ending though is that, after disintegrating Knull in the Sun, Eddie Brock seems to have now taken over from him as the new King in Black, or God of the Symbiotes, whatever they want to call it this month. Given the history of both Eddie and the Venom Symbiote, I cannot possibly see how this could go wrong in any way in the near future, with some over-zealous writer deciding that the best course of action is to just repeat this event, but with less oomph this time around. Despite the popularity of the character, I do fear for the future, as Donny Cates has done so much to change it up over the last few years, and I worry that this new status quo is going to leave other writers scrambling to think of what they could actually do with it. Essentially, Eddie Brock and Venom are now the most powerful being in control of Symbiotes, which I feel is a pretty difficult thing to write stories about, without just completely overpowering the character, which would leave them a little in the lurch when it comes to interest in their adventures.

This issue had everything that you would likely expect from a semi-decent finale for such a bug story, and as such was filled to the brim with some pretty awesome moments and visuals, that you probably won’t see anywhere else. A lot of the time, these kinds of moments are simply included for the sheer shock value of the readers seeing them for the first time (that was basically what Infinity War and Endgame were in the MCU), but here I thought that they were actually there with simple explanations made readily available. The best example of this here was when Venom first returned, and he immediately begins to wield Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, which is ordinarily reserved for those that it deems to be worthy of such an honour. At first, I thought that it was kind of ludicrous that someone like Eddie Brock was able to wield the hammer, but obviously I then started using my brain, and came to the conclusion that this was of course due to being the latest host of the Enigma Force/God of Light. He then called upon the Silver Surfer’s board (which at that moment was in the guise of a sword), combining the two to make an utterly badass looking axe, which was probably a little unnecessary in terms of size, but a cool visual all the same. The other incredible moment in this story, at least for me, was when the shield of Symbiotes vacated their position around the Earth, allowing the light of the Sun to return to the planet. Just as he was about to be overran by Dracula’s vampiric contingent, Blade simply just stopped even trying to fight them, declining backup from his teammates. Of course the vampires heard all of this and asked him “What do you know that we do not?”, to which he replied with the most Blade line he possibly could: “I know what time it is”, all as the vampires all simultaneously were dusted to high heaven in a flash of light. It wasn’t exactly the cleverest line in the history of the world, but I just found it quite funny, for once full on laughing out loud as I read through the page.

To end this review, I just have to quickly talk about the one real thing that just kind of irked me throughout this issue. I understand that, at it’s core, this event was always a Venom story, meaning that the big focus on Eddie Brock makes perfect sense, and he should be the shining star of the story. However, I do not think that just having one person as the shining star of the story should be used as an excuse for the mockery that was made of the rest of the heroes within this finale, as for the most part it felt as though they were just simply an afterthought. Instead of having a huge role to play in the defeat of Knull and his forces, heavy-hitters such as Captain America, and to some extent Cyclops, were left on the sidelines of the battle, serving no purpose other than to provide tiny bits of exposition, or in the case of Spider-Man, a quick cameo and a one liner in the middle of the important portion of the battle. Obviously, I understand that they wouldn’t have really been able to do much against Knull, and Eddie was already more than powerful enough to take him on alone, but I just wish that Cates had treated everybody else with a little bit more respect, even if the majority of this event kind of already put them front and centre after Eddie’s death.

 

This final issue of "King in Black" recieves a "B-" grade, with the event as a whole only recieving a "C" grade.